“That is our space,” I said pleasantly.
“Well, have ya a seat,” the man said and made to sit up without turning to regard us. One of his friends shook his head quickly and pointed. The man under our table looked up, and beholding us, frowned. Then he began to move quickly until he was standing almost chest to chest with us in the small space. Gaston inserted his shoulder between this trespasser and my person.
Once upright, the man spoke diffidently; and if he had worn a hat I was sure it would have been clutched to his breast. “Beggin’ yur pardon, me Lord.”
“Nay,” I said firmly. “You may beg it for that last bit, as I am not a Lord here, but not for the use of our bed. We are all rather like too many sheep in a pen, wherein if one wishes to move, others must move into the space the first occupied to make room for the maneuver.”
This brought a number of chuckles from those perched on the hammocks.
Our trespasser was still standing before us, appearing quite trapped between the table and my matelot.
Gaston was very tense, and all eyes were upon him. I snaked an arm about his waist and rubbed his belly reassuringly.
“I do not believe we have met,” I told the trespasser cheerily and extended my other hand. “I am Will, this is my matelot, Gaston.”
“We know who ya be,” the man said.
He would not look directly at Gaston, seeming to prefer to keep his gaze on me.
“I can only imagine what you have heard,” I sighed. “What is your name? If it pleases you to give it.”
“Ingram, my… si…”
“Will,” I prompted.
“Will,” he said.
“He be new to the Ways o’ the Coast,” a man sitting on Cudro’s hammock said. “Came from the navy.”
“Ah,” I said with a nod. “You will overcome that in time.”
This brought forth more amusement from our audience.
Every muscle on Gaston’s body was taut. I could not see precisely what he gazed upon, but it appeared to be the windows and not any man present. I needed to get him safely tucked away.
“Now, my good Ingram, if you will perhaps step there.” I indicated a place, and another man moved to make the necessary space. “And then I will step there, and so on, until you are where we stand, and we are under the table. Then perhaps you could tell us of your escape from the navy.”
And so we moved as required, and I soon had Gaston safely in the corner beneath the table. He would not meet my gaze, though, and his overall demeanor was distant and hued with danger. With dismay, I realized we would not be practicing our morning regimen anytime soon, at least not until we reached Cow Island.
The orange rays of the setting sun were glaring through the gallery windows when at last we obtained enough relative privacy in a room full of men for me to turn my back on the rest, without appearing rude, and ask Gaston, “How are we?” in whispered French.
“I will endure,” he sighed.
“Could they leave us on Cow Island?”
“I will not give them cause,” he said sadly.
“Non, non, by our own volition. I cannot see sailing about for months under these conditions. I shall go mad.”
He shook his head. “It will not be as it was when we sought the fleets. In raiding, we sail to a place and then we disembark. One must only endure reaching the destination.”
He met my concerned gaze again and sighed, though it did little to relieve the tension across his shoulders.
“I will endure, Will, truly.”
I nodded. “As always, let me know what I must do to aid you.”
He smiled weakly. “Continue befriending them, as you are so adroit at doing; and continue holding me, as you so inexplicably seem wont to do.”
I grinned. “I am heartened that you can still make jest.”
He shook his head. “The time will soon come when I cannot. It is like an approaching storm. It will not pass until it has spent itself in some fashion. I have been considering it these last hours. In the past I have simply… withdrawn. I have hidden within myself and not spoken or reacted to them except to urge that they leave me alone. It is a course of action that saved me, and the lives of those around me, on many a voyage. But now I see where it was folly, as that, in addition to my bouts, is what has left me with my current reputation and few friends beyond those you have made for us.”
I acknowledged the truth of his words with a sad smile. “You have me now. I will be your bulwark.”
He nodded. “But still, the damage has been done, and no amount of clever lies or cheerful salve will heal it. And perhaps it should not. I should be viewed as a dangerous man.”
I could not gainsay him. I thought on all he had said.
“So, the Horse must have time to run on Cow Island. I am sure we can obtain that,” I said at last.
“Run wild, Will. It will not be enough to exercise it. It will run with no thought as to its direction.”
I frowned. “So you feel a bout of madness is pending and cannot be avoided? It is like a storm we must weather?”
He nodded. “It has been a season of storms since Île de la Tortue. It was fantasy to think they could be controlled as we planned. I am sorry, Will: I have misled you. I wished to rove so that I might rage against an enemy I could kill without censure. My words about it being safer for me to spend myself on the enemy were only a partial truth. I relish it.”
“If I had not wished to rove?” I asked.
He sighed. “I would have stayed with you: at great peril to us both. Instead, I have chosen to bring greater peril upon us with this course.”
I did not feel surprise, or even that I had been misled; however, this revelation did cast a new light on matters. It was rather like a vase with a pretty pattern upon it: turned one way, a man saw leaves; another, he saw branches; but it was still the same vase.
“Well, damn you,” I said with a smile and kissed his cheek.
He recoiled, his eyes wide with wonder. “You are mad.”
“Precisely. We have been viewing this from the wrong angle. I am the madman; you are actually quite sane.”
He shook his head in wonder. “You are as stubborn as a tick.”
“Thank you, though, I would prefer a more pleasing comparison. Would you prefer a less stubborn tick?” I teased.
He awarded me an incredulous shake of his head. “Non. You have burrowed deep.”
“So, we will reach Cow Island and run wild until your storm has passed,” I said. “Then we will get on with the other business of clearing your name, such as it is. Running wild might work to our advantage: we need to stay well clear of the others until all of our information has had time to be properly disseminated among the French.”
“I might harm you,” he said solemnly.
I shook my head. “Non, I feel I am as much a tick on your big black Horse haunch as I am on your human heart.”
His eyes narrowed in thought and he slowly smiled. “Oui. We will run together.”
I wondered what that might entail. I also wondered how I would keep the pace, both literally and figuratively, in my present condition.
Sometime in the night, I woke to find myself alone. That is to say, Gaston was not beside me, though the cabin was filled with snores, some of them familiar. I waved an arm and a leg about and did not encounter him. The mattress was still warm and hollow where he had been, and sweat was drying where he had been in contact with me. His departure must have woken me. Dim light flickered on the ceiling. I could not see Gaston. There was very little space he could occupy if he were still in the room.
I was up and moving before the concern clutching my heart had time to grip my head. I did not think he had left me to go to the poop rails. He never felt that need at night. Fear-born intuition pointed my feet to the quarterdeck and not the bow. As soon as I ascended the steps I saw his back at the aft rail in the dim lantern light. He was standing oddly, but I could not name the how of it.
I made haste th
reading through the sleeping men between us, and kicked and trod upon several in the process. Thus he heard me coming by their sleepy curses. He sagged to his knees gripping the rail. Then I knew what I had seen before: his weight had been upon his hands, as if he meant to climb over.
I threw myself upon his back and my arms around him. He did not flinch or struggle.
“I do not wish to die flailing about in the water waiting for the sharks to have their due,” I said, when my breathing had slowed sufficiently for me to speak. “So, whatever you plan to do, I ask that you make it painless and without much terror, as I will follow you. In truth, perhaps I might prefer that you surprise me and send me on before you. Provided there is no pain. I have had more than enough of that. For me, it signals life and not death.”
He did not move, but his breathing was ragged.
“Or,” I continued, “you could do as you have done this night as a form of suicide: because I surely wish to strangle you at the moment.”
“Please,” he whispered. “I cause nothing but trouble.”
“Damn you,” I sighed. “I know that. But by the Gods, it is my right to decide whether I wish to bring it upon myself or not. How dare you attempt to rid me of it?”
He struggled a bit in my arms and I let him move. I was relieved when he turned to face me and embrace me in return. I could not read his face in the moonlight. I could not fathom what had brought this on. It was madness.
I barked with pained amusement. How many damn times must I be told?
“I feel we should return to binding you,” I whispered gently.
He nodded into my shoulder.
“Until this storm season passes,” I added.
He shook his head and whispered huskily. “I feel it will never pass. I will never be as I was. I will descend further and further into madness. I will drag you with me.”
“Then you shall spend the rest of your days bound to me,” I said firmly. “Your only escape will be found in killing me.”
He pulled back to regard me with wonder and tears. “You are a mad tick.”
I smiled. “Oui.”
In the morning, I woke to Striker dropping to the floor next to us. I closed my eyes again and considered going back to sleep. Then the shadows changed across my face. I looked, and found Striker kneeling beside me, peering under the table with concern.
“I was wondering why your weapons were atop the table… but I see now,” he said, and pointed at the rope binding my wrist to Gaston’s.
“Aye, we are having some difficulty,” I said lightly.
Striker shook his head and sighed. “I thought this might happen... again.”
I knew not what to say. Gaston and I had spent the first days of our return from Île de la Tortue last year bound together as we were now. Striker had been disturbed by it.
“He will not harm me,” I said as I had said then. “And nay, the rope is no proof against his escaping me, but it serves to remind him that he is bound to me when he loses his way. He finds comfort in it. And it is enough to alert me if... some need overtakes him in his madness.”
“I know,” Striker said kindly. “But you cannot be armed lest he cut the rope in his madness, aye? And you can’t sleep. And...” His words trailed off with an annoyed sigh. “We all discussed this before we left. We thought...” He sighed again and went to their sea chest. He returned with a kerchief-wrapped bundle.
I worked my way to sitting, waking Gaston in the process. He had been sleeping like the dead, as he was wont to do after having a bout.
Striker opened the bundle. It contained soft leather strips and a pair of iron manacles.
I sighed at the sight of them as cold congealed in my empty belly. Rope was one thing, it had warmth and could easily be shed; chains were another thing altogether. But I could see Striker’s reasoning. Gaston could not cut chain.
Gaston’s hand darted to the manacles to touch them tentatively. I glanced down, and found the wide-eyed mien of a child. This was a thing that must be done. He was storm-tossed and I his only anchor.
“These were the lightest and smoothest we could find,” Striker said. “Still, you will want to wrap your wrists first, so that they do not abrade them. I still have thick skin from the scars about my wrists from being chained.”
He gave me a guilty look. “Sorry, I don’t mean to…”
I shook my head. “Thank you for being so thoughtful.”
Striker and I untied the rope about my left wrist. Then he cleverly wrapped the strip of leather from the heel of my hand up to the middle of my forearm, leaving the ends free to tie it closed at the top. Then we did the same with Gaston’s right wrist. Then Striker closed the metal about us. The key was on a braided chain of leather that he put around his neck.
Gaston tested the weight on his wrist happily. There was a good foot of chain between the bracelets, but I still felt his every move. I was not sure why it troubled me so as compared to the rope. I supposed it was due to bad memories. Iron about my wrists spoke of helplessness and heralded death.
Striker saw something of my concern and his features coalesced into doubt. “We thought you might be able to get some sleep this way. And…I would rather have you armed. Not that I don’t trust the men, but there are so many we don’t know these days and... Hell, we could run afoul of the Spanish and...”
I cut him off with quick words and a reassuring smile. “I have been in chains twice. Both times I had been arrested for some crime I had truly committed, and if not for the intervention of others I would have been hanged.”
My smile widened to genuine amusement at the irony that now the intervention of friends was what put me in chains.
“I truly feel it is a fine solution,” I assured him.
“Glad to hear it,” Striker said.
Gaston made a happy humming sound, and looped his chained arm about me and kissed my neck.
Striker seemed to find grim amusement in this. “How does he appear so cute when he’s thus? I swear I couldn’t see him so, unless I had seen him…”
I felt Gaston’s head shift and heard a low growl. Striker raised an eyebrow at whatever look Gaston cast upon him.
“He is quite volatile when he is thus,” I said.
“Aye,” Striker said, sober now. “I will not call him cute again.”
He left us. Gaston continued to lick my neck: quite pleasurably, actually. I turned my wrist to and fro, testing the feel of the band. Only the Gods knew whether these chains represented a death sentence, one which I had gladly given myself.
Thirty-Five
Wherein We Battle Horses, Bulls, and Dogs
We sailed on to Cow Island. I quickly discovered that the manacles freed Gaston from everything but his madness. He surrendered to his Horse and abandoned all pretenses of holding the reins and wearing his mask. He became exceedingly mercurial: at times railing one second and giggling the next. When he was sad, he curled into a ball and cried. When he was angry, he expressed his discontent without real threat or malice. Though I was initially alarmed, I soon learned he was not possessed by the Devil so much, but rather by some faerie sprite of whimsy. He spent an entire afternoon daubing his eye paint upon our chests, so that we appeared to have the spots he remembered from some great cat in a menagerie. He carved the word “endure” onto my cuff, and the word “conquer” onto his. Yet, even without the mask of reason, he still saw to our well-being, and was quite concerned with what I ate and how my bruises were healing. He finally decided that our wounds were healed such that the stitches could be removed, and instructed me quite earnestly on cutting his. All of this was done with the earnestness of a child.
I stopped fearing him in any capacity. Every time he came at me with carnal intent, I prayed with great fervor he would find his rise, but he did not. Instead, he pleasured me greatly on several occasions. He found great amusement in bringing me to cries of such volume that I woke our sleeping associates.
I worried that his overt demonstrations of m
adness would further harm our standing with the crew, and was pleased to discover this was not the case at all. Many of the men were relieved that my matelot now appeared as mad as they knew him to be. A rational-appearing man who could not be trusted in his sanity was cause for alarm; but an obvious madman could apparently be seen and accepted for what he was.
As for our friends, those who could not tolerate this new Gaston the Horse – as I coined him, not they – gave us wide berth. Thus we did not spend much time with Julio or Davey, or even the Bard. Pete, Liam, and Cudro, however, became fascinated by my matelot’s antics, as if he were the most interesting thing on the voyage, which I suppose he was.
Striker was amused and concerned. One afternoon he joined us in the cabin. We had been surprisingly alone. He watched Gaston carve little animals on the side of the table with a dirk and asked me, “How are you?”
To which Gaston replied, “We are fine, because Will has the reins.” And then he threw the dirk into the center of a target he had made on the far wall, wriggled himself into my lap, and pulled my free hand to his head to scratch his scalp; which I did rigorously so that he arched his back and made a happy sound.
“I am fine,” I assured Striker. “I have always enjoyed riding spirited creatures.”
But not for days at a time; and Gaston gave me no time to rest.
Striker nodded to my words, and I did not know if he guessed at my thoughts.
“When we reach Cow Island,” I said, “We will need to be set free to run about in the woods.”
From my lap, Gaston was regarding me with narrowed eyes. He rolled to look at Striker.
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